Advanced Stores Management Technology on Unmanned Vehicles
Grand Rapids, MI - Raytheon Missile Systems has awarded GE Aviation the second phase contract for the Persistent Close Air Support (PCAS) program to provide the stores management system for the PCAS-Air component. PCAS-Air would be a platform-agnostic, plug-and-play system that would consist of an internal navigation system, stores and engagement management systems and high-speed data transfer systems.
The contract includes the engineering and data development of GE's Stores and Payload Controller (SPC), a lightweight stores management system designed for UAVs. In addition, GE has been contracted to host and integrate a US government high-value software application onto GE's open system Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA).
"The stores and payload controller has a standards-based architecture for a variety of current and future stores, making it a comprehensive system for multiple platforms," said Todd Caccamo, business director, Avionics Systems for GE Aviation. "This potentially provides the user with a common product that streamlines cost and can be used on manned or unmanned aircraft in the air, on land or at sea."
The second phase of the Persistent Close Air Support program will support the integration and test of GE's SPC solution onto the PCAS platform, resulting in a planned series of flight tests and live-fire demonstrations at the end of phase three. GE also plans to demonstrate the ease of porting legacy 3rd party software applications into a military open IMA computing system. The program is administered by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
GE Aviation provides the stores management system for the MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter, the Shadow® Unmanned Aircraft System and has provided mission/stores management solutions to a wide variety of military aerial platforms for more than 40 years. GE has delivered more than 4,500 systems to numerous fixed- and rotary-wing military aircraft operators worldwide.
The system is provided from GE's facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
GE Aviation, an operating unit of GE (NYSE: GE), is a world-leading provider of engines, components and integrated systems for commercial and military aircraft. GE Aviation has a global service network to support these offerings.